Michael

"Hey kid, how you doing?" I ask James as he opens his eyes for the day. I scared him the first time I watched him sleep but he has since gotten used to it.

"Fine," he says with a yawn and a stretch. "What time is it anyway?"

"About 8:30 am. You planning on going to church with me?"

"No, thanks and all dad but I think no more church for me for a while."

I grin at that. "Well, at least now you're aware of it as an option. What kind of father would I be if I didn't teach you about all the options you have? Besides, religion is insidious. You might think you don't believe in God now but it creeps up on you once you've been introduced to it."

"We'll see. Football when you get back?" He asks getting up.

"Depends when I get back, I have a few extra chores to take care of today."

"Cool..."

"So I've been meaning to talk to you about the divorce-"

"Its cool, mom already talked about it. And I sort of understand that you can't be married if you can't have sex any more and stuff."

I snort at that. "Most married people hardly have sex, but yea I guess you get the gist of it. And your mom is still young, she has a long life ahead of her and can't be around taking care of me all the time."

"But she's hardly even around that much anymore since she took this new job. She stayed in New York most of the year and she didn't even come back this weekend like she said she would."

"Hey, I saw her Thursday so she was around. You must have been to busy to see her, or upset..." I already know most of his tricks, he loves her but he loves me too. The kid is conflicted 'cause he feels like he should take a side.

"You know I still love your mom and she loves me, I'm also upset but I'm not mad at her. Let's try not to be mad at her okay?" I say brushing his hair back.

"Okay..." He says with a sigh but I can already tell he is happier.

"Good, now give her a call and tell her you love her for me."

I kiss him on the forehead and wheel myself out. Running into little Veronica in jogging shorts in the passageway waiting for me.

"Grandpa said you do yoga last night at the table. Care to take me with you?"

I grin at that. "Wanna spend the day with me lil lady?" I love this girl as though she were my own. I still don't know how Owen had anything to do with her conception.

"Let's do it," She says with smiling eyes.

"Church first, go get dressed casually but modestly. But bring a gym bag, I'll be downstairs."

We head out to church, it's a two-hour service but we leave when I feel Veroni falling asleep.

Then off to the temple where we separate and she starts exploring the grounds. I go have a word with Yoshi.

I tell him about some of the conversation I had with Candice and a little of what transpired. He nods the whole time as though he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

"Can I book you a few appointments with some of my friends Michael?" He asks innocently, but I know not to take anything for granted when it comes to this man.

"Sure..." I say with some suspicion, ''whatever helps growth''.

"Great," he says with excitement. "It would help if I got a copy of your complete medical file with all your latest scans, and you be ready for your first appointment say, Friday."

He says already getting up to leave. I smile at him. "I'll email them to you," I say watching his excitement.

I eventually try meditating in a sigil drawn meditation circle. After that, I take Veroni to the dojo where we enrol her in a beginner's jujitsu class. She's very excited about the whole thing, her euphoric wonder infecting me. Maybe in a few months I can take her to the shooting range with James.

We have lunch after and she can barely contain herself.

"You do this stuff every day?" She asks before biting into her sandwich.

"More or less, but with some variation," I say dipping my fries in sauce.

"No wonder you're so cool. Your like zhen all the time Uncle Michael, dad said it was all the drugs cause you never used to be like this before the accident."

"I actually don't take any drugs anymore. Turns out there are natural herbal alternatives to everything, and I think the pharmaceutical companies are making enough money off the old man."

"Yea, he takes like six a day now and he pees all the time," she says with her mouth half full. I can't help but smile at her.

"How did she do on the mat Edgar?" I ask.

"She's a natural, she could be a pro," he says then they start having their own conversation.

My life isn't ideal, far from it. But I have accepted everything I cannot change and have been working towards everything I can for years now. Even before my accident I had started looking to improve myself wholly. Mind, body, spirit, soul. Whatever those later things are.

The last five years though I've had nothing but time to myself every day. Working on my mind and spirit more than anything else.

We head to a yoga class, a different class for beginners, but I do text Candice telling her I had a great time with her last night and that I'd see her in class on Monday.

I'm usually not very good at the follow-up, but since she's my instructor it would be awkward if I just showed up without any form of prior communication.

After that, I introduce my niece to my nerd friends at the arcade. We have a few beers, talk computers and play video games. I've been actively working on all my relationships since the accident. Making new friends at my age is very difficult, so I try to keep all my old friendships going.

It took some effort to restart some of them, but now Wesley and I are thick as thieves again. The weird bastard got married and has a two-year-old now. I was one of the best men at that momentous event.

"Time to head home kid, did you enjoy yourself?" I ask as we head to the car.

She nods sagely, acting cool and controlled, "it was a good day."

*

Do people outgrow each other or do they simply drift apart? The friends I had in high school, even William my closest friend at the time was practically a stranger to me when I visited him after my first tour abroad.

There were awkward silences between us even as we had a beer in a crowded bar. And the only conversation we did have with any cohesion was reminiscing about old times in high school, or how hot our math teacher was. Then there were my college friends who by then had doctorates, some were engineers or wore suits doing the daily grind that is the numbing corporate or beurocratic bureaucratic America.

Even Wesley eventually joined the corporate workforce. Joining a startup tech firm called Facebook or something. Everyone I knew outside the military was practically a different species of being to me. With superficial ramblings, unimportant or just uninteresting concerns to me. Civilians living their lives in the 9 to 5 grind of the twisted outcome of the American dream.

But I preserved for some reason, not wanting to lose those I had genuinely considered friends because I had lost enough over in the desert. But it honestly takes a lot of effort to establish a friendship seemingly from an old childhood foundation.

Every time I came Stateside I made sure to visit all my civilian friends, awkward pauses or not, the people I wanted to keep in my life. I went to their barbecues, I went to tedious events with William with his pretentious friends that spoke about the market and how they got laid last night by some 'fat ass bitch' etc etc.

I eventually became pseudo-friends with some of the redeemable asshole friends of his as well and we got close again. I got close with Wesley and the tech gang, and surprise of all surprises I developed a friendship with the then-married Alexandria McCorr.

l got married to Alice at 25 and I left the military for good at 30. Thoroughly disillusioned about the fight and all the shit we had done to the people of those countries. All the shit they have done to us in turn.

Most military men that stay more than 7 years in the military do so out of habit more than blind belief of what they are doing anymore. I didn't want to stay out of habit even with the medal I received for my service, I had just lost too many friends and done too much bad shit to people. My son was already five years old and I wanted to spend time with him.

When I was a young healthy 32-year-old man with the world as his playground walking across the street in Michigan the unthinkable happened.

After seven years of getting shot at and blown up across the middle east, Asia and Africa it's in Michigan that I got paralyzed. Michigan.

I've been shot, stabbed, blown up, had a building dropped on me, dogs set on me, beaten with clubs by a mob. And its in Michigan crossing the street that I meet my death. At least that's what I thought when I saw the car swerve towards me.

I could have moved and let it hit me at an angle that would have increased my chances of survival. But if I did that the 14-year-old school kid crossing the street with me would have gotten splattered.

So I pushed her out of the way hard and got hit by what felt like the hand of God. I knew I was dead the moment it hit me. The impact, the flight, the landing all stretching forever yet happening in a single instant. Lying there trying to determine how bad it was I knew I was a goner.

I had a head injury, I couldn't hear anything and everything was blurry. I couldn't keep a coherent thought going for more than a few seconds and I hardly felt any sensations.

I was in and out as I was transported around. The angle of the view I had of the sky changing every time I opened my eyes. I was suddenly in an operating room having a breathing mask placed on my face, the background bright lights and masked faces. I was sure I was going to heaven.

I remember those events clearly.

When I later opened my eyes I was in a hospital room uncomfortable but unable to move. I had mild pain in comparison to the injuries I knew I had incurred.

At my age, at the speed with which that car was going and the angle with which I took the hit, I should have been dead. So mild pain and discomfort were the sweetest of sensations right then.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

A nurse eventually comes into the room, speaking all the while but sounding far away as though she were in a bubble. She nursed me as she spoke, giving sips of water through a straw. Checking my vitals on the monitor and everything else.

The pretty middle-aged no-nonsense woman left after administering a sponge bath.

After sleeping I woke to my family in the room looking happy, worried, sad all at the same time. The light touches were worried, careful but heartfelt.

I remember saying something like, "guys, come now no need for the long faces. I survived, I'll be ok now." James started crying and ran out of the room.

"I'll get him." Alice quickly said as she bolted after him. I knew then that I must have been in really bad shape.

Mother looked at me with her sad pretty eyes and what she considers her stern face. She sats on the edge of the bed and held my hand.

"Michael, the doctors have spoken to us and we will take care of everything. Your stepfather and I, the whole family is going to be with you through all this."

"I don't understand, I'll get better, I feel fine. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down." I said already starting to hyperventilate. The gorge of panic slowly creeping up my oesophagus.

"Son, you have what they are calling a complete spinal cord injury. They still have to go in and operate again, but they need to let the drugs wear off to see how much pain you're in."

"Which spine?"

Mother looked at me like she didn't understand.

"Which region of the spine?" I think at that point I was raising my voice.

"S1 region with bruising and trauma on T4 and 5, and I said you can come in one at a time." A doctor I assumed to be my doctor said when she walked in.

My mind was hyperactive, my training kicking in trying to catalogue all the injuries I could feel and what I knew about the sacral part of the spine. It meant the car initially hit me low, probably breaking the vertebrae on impact. The rest if probably from the fall...

"What's the prognosis?" I was calm as the doctor tried and failed to kick out my family.

She looks at me funny, information is calming me down some. With information I can plan, its the sad patronizing looks I can't handle.

"You will never feel anything below your hips again Mr. O'Hare. I'm sorry." She finally says and I nod at her.

"What's the plan?"

And that's how I ended up in a wheeled chair.